This is a subject I am sooooo reluctant to bring up....but I've gotta be me!

I smoke cigarettes! I hate that I do.....but I do....and I'm not gonna make any excuses for it. I have all the warnings....I know what it's doing to me....I'm not stupid....I know already! I'll tell you this.....I've quit 72,000 times.....and as an addict, I suffer the battle everyday of my smoking life (I was 7 y/o when I started...you do the math!). If you've never smoked.....you'll never understand the addiction....and so I don't slight you for thinking, "Just quit then". If it were that easy I wouldn't be on here right now......so pissed off my head could explode!

My husband just came home from the store with 2 packs of cigarettes.....Total=$10.50.......

SIN TAX! A fuckin SIN TAX......again! For the 6th time in less than 3 years......we, the smokers, are dubbed sinful and taxed for it out the wazzoo! We have been moved to the outdoors....or off the premises completely.......made to stand in "shelters" far removed from the general population....shunned in restaraunts and now even local drinking establishments........taxed up the ying yang.......some have quit and a few of those have made it to the other side......and we have taken all this because we are addicted and we really don't have a leg to stand on! We know that our smoke can harm those that don't indulge.....and so we move away to be considerate......we sit in our little section of the restaraunt and keep to ourselves....we pay the tax as it's acrued....and we take it and take it and take it.............till I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

We aren't animals! Not everything about smoking is sinful and horrible (just wait to comment on that one till you hear me out).....I've known smokers well into their 90's who've braved the warnings and lived a good long life! Some people are more susceptible to disease and sickness than others.....but that's true about anything in life! I'm not a hunter.....seeking non-smokers to make them sick! I am the most considerate smoker I know....and I have never done anything to offend anyone on purpose in my life!

With all the research we have as to how bad smoking is for us.....couldn't we work on a way to HELP the smoker instead of taxing them and punishing them time and time again? I know....I know....there are devices and gum and shit like that out there to aid us in quitting. I also know willpower plays a major role in success. OK....I admit it! I don't have that SPECIAL willpower that so many quitters before me have! I'm addicted for crimony sakes! Not an animal....an addict!

What is the means to the end of this sin tax? What will happen when everyone quits and the cigarette companies go out of business? Where do you think they (the powers that be) will get the money to replace the taxes they have become accustomed to in collecting this tax from smokers? Do you think it'll come out of non-smoker's pockets? It's gonna come from somewhere.....cause once the tax is relied on for the amount of time it'll take every smoker to quit and every tobacco company to go out of business.....we won't be able to go back to the day when there was no such thing as a sin tax on tobacco! I wonder if they've ever thought of that?

It'd just serve them right for a surgeon to come up with a hemi-lobotomy that would CURE all smokers! Wham! Where you getting your raise from now Mr./Ms SINTAXER???

Whew! Who wants the soapbox now? Anyone can express an opinion....because as I've said.....ain't nothing you can say to me that I haven't already said to myself!

OH!!!! I WILL be back on this one.

LMAO

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I knew I could count on you!

Least I think I knew....I should wait and see what you come up with, huh?

OK...shutting up now!

Well just grow your own or switch to pot. Pot is healthier, cheaper, and won't ostrasize you more.

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Well sir that seems to be someone else's problem.

LOL, that's the way to live.

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Ryan » Send Message | My Post History
"Bend over and allow me to corkscrew you."

As a fellow addict, I wholeheartedly agree with you Lixy! A pack of 20 here averages about £4.20 (just under $7!!).. out of that, roughly £3.70 is tax! (Our petrol (gasoline) is taxed the same way..... £3.30 a gallon, and nearly £3 is tax!!)

I've tried to quit the dreaded "weed" loads of times.......hasn't worked!! One day..........

DM

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The selfish, they're all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind

Thanks for replying hun....but I don't agree with your statement! Pot would make me more ostrasized as it's still illegal where I am. I've smoked it and then smoked a cig afterwards! Kind of weird huh? But pot doesn't do for me what cigs do....whatever that is! Pot isn't cheaper where I am either.....unless I grow my own.....and then I have to contend with hiding it from the authorities....etc. etc. etc.! I don't live in a climate condusive to growing tobacco. So that's out!

And my point here is.....not necessaarily the addiction....but being labeled by a tax kook and my pockets being turned inside out....while non-smokers aren't taxed for their so-called "sins".....whatever they may be! It's similar to me having to pay the same school tax...when I don't have children....and there are people who have 4-7 children that live in a rental....and so they don't have to pay school tax at all! I just don't see any fairness in this sin tax. I pay my fair share of taxes along with everyone else.....but this has gone through the roof on tobacco!

AMEN LIXY!!!!!!

I applaud your opinion. I am a smoker, too. And thanks to these "sin tax" people, I can not smoke anywhere in the town that I live in with the exception of my own house or my own truck. There has even been some talk around here of making people stop smoking in their cars because it "distracts you from driving" and " causes grass fires". The cigarette butts do not cause grass fires, and they help me to drive right and not kill everyone around me. I remember when cigs where $1.00 a pack, and now there are some places in Texas where the cheapist pack you will find will be $3. Premium cigs are out of this world. I look at it this way - they are my lungs, let me char them if I want to!!!

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Would you like more sex with that?

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.

And.....to be honest.....I don't care about the ostrasization part of it! I know non-smokers find it disgusting! Hell....I find it yucky too sometime! That's not my point........my point is......

How can it be fair to continually pinpoint one group of people and put them in the poor house (and I'm talking all smokers and the large tobacco companies)...and then fully expect at the end of it all....that someone....some other group....is going to have to pick up the slack for not being able to collect the revenue that has become the norm????

Does that make sense? I mean....if push comes to shove....and it is coming to that.....we'll have no more smokers to tax.....we'll have no big corporations to blame......and SOMEONE is going to have to pick up the slack cause.........we can't go back!

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Minds are like parachutes. They only work when they are open.

~Thomas Dewar~

Lixy will you have one for me, I quit 23 months ago and I could really use one right now. LOL

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1) I don't think there will be a wanking tax since so few people are honest when you ask them how often they toss off.

2) Obviously, you have never tried buying alcohol in Utah which I heard is damn near impossible.

3) No, but I will be anally raped in prison for smoking a harmless little weed that makes me happier about my life.

Seriously, we should legalize pot and all drugs for that matter. While we are at it leagalize all guns. Sure people will die, but hey you will want that rocket launcher when the crackheads come.

Secondly, the number two user of American Tabocco is the Mideast. We should start a tobacco embargo on the Mideast until they start co-operating with our war on terrorism AND start selling oil at 1960 prices (or at least redistribute those oil revenues maongsty thier pesants).

Third, bomb the f*ck out of Saudi Arabia. They deserve it not Iraq.

I will be able to run for President in 2016. In the meantime support the Guns and Dope party.

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Well sir that seems to be someone else's problem.

I've heard the argument raised around here, paprclphd, that there may be a law that one couldn't smoke in their vehicle with a child aboard.....that it could be construed as child abuse. Well.....I guess it could be.......but then so could living next door to a dump, or next to high power lines, or sending your child to an old school building (where there could be asbestos, but it has never been checked)......and so on and so on...........and just how much are we going to let these people do before we make a stand and say.....ENOUGH already! You've done everything but come into my home and put out my cigarette personally!

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Minds are like parachutes. They only work when they are open.

~Thomas Dewar~

LMFAO! And....um.....HERE, HERE! Power to the people!

*starts the first major sit-in since 1967*

Please ignore the man with the rocket launcher.......for he knows not what he does! *giggle*

Oh sweety! Don't do it! Wank a bit...but don't do it! Suck a pencil...but don't do it! I'm so proud of you! I remember when you quit! I was proud then and I am doubley proud now! Beat the demon hun! I know you can! I envy you from the top of my head to the tip of my toes!

This is what I was saying folks.....it's an addiction.....albeit for Scarecrow now, it's a mental addiction.....but it NEVER goes away! We aren't animals.....we are addicts! We need HELP......not more pounding into the ground!

(((((((Scarecrow)))))))) Hang in there hun! We are at war!

Paprclphd,

And the irony of it is that if you live in Houston, then the second hand smoke would be a breath of freash air compared to the perma-smog! Houston has the worst air in the country (Thank you George Bush!) and finally beat out LA which has being in a valley to blame for its poor air quality. Houston has nothing to blame for its poor air other than industry and lots of traffic.


Of course, I wouldn't be so pissed off if I could find a job at one of the plants and have halth insurance (All hail King George II!), but alas I am a pizza boy we don't get health insurance, but we get to breathe the same dirty air.

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Well sir that seems to be someone else's problem.